


bound to mend the bond that makes you mine

by aalphard



Series: of threads & ribbons [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Red String of Fate, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aalphard/pseuds/aalphard
Summary: He wonders what Rintarou would say if Osamu told him he can see the strings.“Did ya ever wonder if soulmates are real?” Osamu manages to choke out.Rintarou squints and then pouts. “Not really. I’m not really interested in the stars or the universe or anything like that. Existing is already too big of a hassle; I don’t need to worry about every single person in the world and what they think of me becausewhat if that one is my soulmate-kind-of-thing, you know?”Osamu nods.“Ah!” he suddenly exclaims, a smug smirk on his face. “But I wouldn’t mind ifyouwere my soulmate. You already know me way too well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the universe just decided to put us both in a little soulmate box thingy.”I would,he wants to say.But he doesn’t.or, once upon a time, there was a boy called miya osamu who hated the color red.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Miya Osamu, Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Series: of threads & ribbons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970422
Comments: 24
Kudos: 323





	bound to mend the bond that makes you mine

**Author's Note:**

> once again beta'd by the incredible [Caahs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caahs) who had to listen to me whining about details all over again (♡´౪`♡)
> 
> this one was really nice to write so i hope you all enjoy it!

_we arouse before the sun would escape_ _  
eventually our lost hearts found the light  
young souls like rays of obscure dreams  
gently sewed up the shores we made  
assure my mind before the tides strike  
and drown the bond that makes you mine_

[ _(by Lama on hellopoetry)_ ](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3385483/bound-to-mend-the-bond/)

* * *

According to the myth, the gods tie an invisible red cord around the pinkies of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way. The two people that are connected by the thread are called soulmates, for how else would they be called? It’s a rather strange concept, to be tied with another living being for reasons only Fate itself knew. According to the myth, the two people connected by the thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time or circumstances. The magical cord weaved by those matchmaking gods may stretch and tangle but it never breaks, never disappears, always wavering softly whenever it gets caught by the soft morning breeze. According to the myth, you can never break free from the binding spell the string brings along, forever linked to someone you might not even like, to someone you’d forever wish you never met.

Osamu knows all about the legends and the rumors. People think they’re unbreakable, but he knows they’re not. People think they’re invisible, but he’s seen them glow in a thousand different shades as if mocking him, as if they’re telling him that _people are stupid, mindless puppets being dragged along by Fate’s whispers_. It _does_ stretch and tangle, though, and that’s the one bit the rumors got right.

He knows exactly when he first noticed it, nothing more than a toddler at age 3, thinking it was strange that both he and his twin had the same reddish, glowing fabric stretching out from their fingers, on and on as they flew out the window. At the time, he had been too scared to pull on it while his brother wrapped his little, chubby fingers around it and tugged with all his might. He knows exactly when he started to dread it, when it started to itch and burn and he wished he could tear it off from his skin. He knows exactly when he let curiosity get the best of him as he tugged on it softly and then a bit harder just because.

When they were older, talking about their strings when there were people around was strictly forbidden and that was the one time he had some peace. While he dreaded the sight of that crimson knot, tugging on it from time to time thinking to himself that _one day I’ll tear it off_ , his brother seemed to think it was magical and absolutely necessary to know the person standing on the other side ( _because we’re fated, Samu, how could it be different?)_.

According to the myth, there’s a pull between two linked people like that of the gravity between celestial bodies, the axis around the sun, something that never ceases but only grows over time. According to the myth, it’s inevitable that, one day, you’ll be dragged along by soft hands born out of silk with long, curved fingernails that dig deep inside your skin and bring you to the person on the other side. There’s no escaping the soft, silky, colorful shackles that wrap around your little finger in a well-made knot, that wrap around your wrist whenever you move in a direction Fate decides you’re not supposed to move in, dragging you back slightly or making the thread stretch in a weird way that makes your fingers burn. Osamu hated the idea of being controlled by something so preposterous, while Atsumu excitedly tugged on his string because _what if they can feel it too?, wouldn’t that be awesome?!_

They were still in school when he decided he _absolutely_ dreaded it. _I hate being able to see this_ , is what he told Atsumu as soon as he felt the warmth of his own blankets hitting his back. Osamu blinked lazily at the face in front of him as his brother looked down with furrowed brows and a tiny pout. _Why?_ , because apparently not everyone felt the same about being controlled like a puppet, because apparently Atsumu thought it was a nice thing, to have your whole life sorted out for you before you even took your first breath. Sure, it looked nice as it flowed along with the wind. It looked nice, glowing almost orange under the sun, glowing almost dark purple under the moonlight, but that was about it. It wasn’t fun seeing people suffer because of it, it wasn’t fun to doubt every little decision you made because _is this really what I want or is that Fate toying with me for its own masochistic purposes?_

So he told him – about how he didn’t like to feel like he had no choice, like his life had already been sorted out for him, like the string didn’t mean anything because plenty of people were living happily ever after without ever being tied together while linked people suffered in fruitless relationships precisely because of the nasty, rusty, dark red of their strings. _But that’s because they can’t see it, Samu_ , his brother had said, _Would ya really throw this chance away? We can see them!_ , and that was precisely the problem.

But even if he thinks so, even if the mere sight of his own string makes him sick to his stomach, he still tugs on it from time to time, still enjoys feeling it wrapping around his wrist at night, still feels weirdly safe as he holds it close under the blankets at night. There was a rumor about vibrations being able to travel through the string, about being able to send messages to your other half, about being able to talk to them even when they were all the way across the ocean. He tried it once. He whispered soft words, the red fabric glowing a faint red as it touched his lips, saying everything he’d kept inside all this time. _I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like loving you right now. I’m sorry, this isn’t what I want. I’m sorry, I don’t like the idea of you being all I think about. I’m sorry, I can see the string, I can touch it and I can feel it, but I can’t feel anything other than dread for you and I haven’t even met you yet. I’m so, so sorry._

It’s only when they get into college that Atsumu seems to quiet down about his own string – even if Osamu sees him tugging at it, even if he watches the way his eyes scan his pinkie first thing in the morning, sparkling with something Osamu has never seen before, a feeling he’s never once tasted. It looks warm and comfortable, like he’s a fragile flower opening up to the warmth of spring for the first time, unsure but thrilled nonetheless. For a few days or maybe weeks, Osamu wonders how that must feel like, to long for the person on the other side, to wish to see them, to dream about them, to desire something so inherently bittersweet Osamu couldn’t help but want a taste.

The day Atsumu opened the door to their dorm room with a stupid smile and flushed cheeks, Osamu knew something had happened. He was sighing and blinking lazily at him as he slowly walked towards his bed, legs without any kind of coordination, feet knocking into things and _yet_ the smile never left his face. He noticed the string right after Atsumu hit his mattress with a soft _thud_ , glowing so brightly it hurt his eyes, a molten lava shade that seems hot to the touch. _Maybe that’s what got ‘im so stupid-looking_ , is what he thinks. Atsumu didn’t say anything in-between his sighs, but when he finally got up, Osamu saw how differently his eyes looked now, hazy and absurdly focused on something that seemed to be standing behind him, all across the horizon, all across campus, inside a dorm room he didn’t even know where it was. _Gross_ , is what he thought then.

And then came the _Omi this, Omi that, you should’ve seen him_ that made him want to gouge out his eyes as they stood back to back, as he tried to sleep, as he tried to cook, as he tried to do literally anything else because apparently Atsumu had gotten lucky with the one on the other side of his string, this Omi guy or whoever it was (and maybe Osamu was secretly hoping that they’d work it out faster so he could have a break already).

The times when he was left alone in his dorm room were literal hell – he felt the string burning whenever he moved, whenever it flowed along with the wind, whenever he did so much as think about the person the universe chose for him. When he tried to touch it, it seemed to pull him down by his ankles, ghostly hands gripping his flesh, digging his nails deep into his skin and tugging so hard he lost balance. When he dared to think about it, he was thrown inside a sea of fire that engulfed him whole as if he’d been drenched in flammable liquid. There was no way Atsumu actually _enjoyed_ this kind of thing, that weird-ass masochist.

Being able to see the string meant knowing things most people wouldn’t and, because of that, they’ve seen lots of different strings – they’ve seen them almost as red as blood, they’ve seen them black, they’ve seen them a light pink and almost translucent in the morning light just before they faded. They’ve seen them wavering along with the breeze and they’ve seen them rigid, hard to the touch as if they’d been frozen. They’ve seen them tangle and they’ve seen them snapping right before their eyes as if Fate couldn’t care less about those two people, toying with them with those mischievous, filthy hands it had.

And one day, as though it was testing him, as though Fate decided to answer his prayers, it fell. It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t anything other than a light breeze running along his skin, other than the sudden lightness of being that crashed into him like a relentless wave that moved back and forth, as annoying as it was unyielding, warning him that _something’s not right, go check it, look at your pinkie, something’s missing_ and there _was_ , indeed, something missing. Osamu panicked. He’d been avoiding the string, pretending he never felt the tug at his pinkie, pretending it didn’t burn to the touch whenever he left his dorm room, pretending he didn’t tiptoe around it as soon as he woke up, whispering to it as if it would ever reply. He pretended he wasn’t playing right into Fate’s hands when a yelp came out of his throat, pretending Fate wasn’t manipulating the silky strands that bound his arms too tightly when he looked up at Atsumu in shock when he peeked from out of the bathroom because _it must be pretty serious if yer yelling, Samu, wassup._

“My string just fell off on its own.”

“What do you mean _it just fell off?!”_

They’d done their fair share of research when they were younger and none of the articles mentioned anything about that being a possibility. It didn’t tear, it didn’t fade, it just fell as graciously as it wavered along the breeze and even though he’d always been wrapped tightly around a barrier, a blanket of indifference, when Fate decided to toy with him and pull the string away from him, it must’ve tugged the blanket along with it. What a cruel, sadistic mistress, indeed.

He could hear Atsumu screaming, throwing his hands up in the air while asking to no one in particular _what do we do, what do we do, how do you solve this_ but all Osamu could do was stare down in disbelief, mouth hanging open and eyes so wide they were about to pop off. It glowed brightly on the carpet, mocking him as it yelled at the top of its lungs that _why so panicky, weren’t you the one who said you could live on without having Fate’s hands on you all the time?_ , and for the first time ever since he decided he didn’t want to live in this cage anymore, Osamu felt all the breath being knocked out of him all at once, his lungs thrashing around inside his ribcage, clawing at him for the sweet, sweet oxygen they never got. He was suffocating on the trail of fire the string left inside him, on the thousands of feathers it shoved all the way down his throat before deciding to leave, mocking him to the very end. Fate had a pathetically dark sense of humor, Osamu had come to know back then.

“It’s just _there!”_ was what he said, pointing at the string as if the motion alone didn’t make his heart crawl in agony inside his chest. “I was reading and I guess I moved too much because when I turned around it wasn’t there anymore and now I’m soulmateless or somethin’.”

Atsumu had kneeled before the string with the most serious face Osamu had ever seen him make and looked up at him again with a sigh. _We can touch ’em. I could just wrap it ‘round yer finger again if you’d like?_ , was what he said and Osamu could only snort back because he’d rather die than have Atsumu touch his string so intimately like that. Or so he thought, because as soon as his brain registered the words, his throat was dry and there was something weirdly stuffy crawling up his throat, settling itself right on top of his windpipe and even breathing was hard. _I don’t trust ya with my string_ , he had said even though it made him feel like dying. _What if it ends up breaking because you’re incapable of handling something so fragile? Don’t touch it!_

He didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore, right? It had fallen off and that had been it. He’d live happily ever after without ever being reminded of the nasty, dark fingernails digging deep into his skin, inside his flesh, tugging him down at every chance they got, drowning him in a burning pit of quicksand and leaving him no other choice than to let himself be dragged down. He was finally free.

But he still picked it up.

He still tugged on it, so lightly he’s not even sure he did. He still sighed in relief when he felt it twitch and burn in his palm, his body suddenly losing strength, his eyes closing unconsciously as he let his body fall limp on the floor. For someone who dreaded even the sight of his own string, Osamu felt like an idiot for wanting to cry when it twitched again in his palm. What a cruel thing Fate did, he had thought, making it so he couldn’t live without the thing he hated the most.

“Come on,” he had said. “Lemme wrap that real tight on ya again.”

He could only reply in a meek voice, that _That’s never happened before_.

“I know.”

Osamu allowed his brother to touch his string, to hold it in his palm, to feel it twitching on his skin. It was glowing brighter now, a nice scarlet shade that he’d never seen before. It looked so fragile Osamu was almost reaching forward to retrieve it, afraid Atsumu would break it accidentally as he turned it around to inspect it, as he tugged on it softly (or maybe too harshly for Atsumu’s was way thicker than his own), afraid that would be the end. _Even if I don’t care about it_ , his brain screamed at him, _even if it’s preposterous and it doesn’t mean anything_. His heart was conflicted and all of a sudden he was neck-deep inside a burning quicksand pit all over again, his skin prickling in discomfort, his muscles sore and his throat rubbed raw from the knot that settled around his windpipe.

He started shaking somewhere along the line and he expected Atsumu to make a snarky remark about it, about _weren’t ya the one who said ya didn’t want it no more?_ , but he didn’t. Instead, Atsumu handled the string carefully, not letting it wrap around his fingers as he slowly wrapped the delicate fabric around Osamu’s pinkie (and Osamu couldn’t help but choke out a strangled _don’t rip it)_ , as he tied it in a well-made knot a couple of times just to be sure (and he whispers back that _I know that, ‘m not stupid_ and they would’ve laughed if the air wasn’t suffocating them). As soon as it was done, Atsumu allowed his body to relax, a relieved sigh escaping his mouth and Osamu couldn’t help doing the same, staring at his string for a few seconds, feeling the pleasant burn spreading all throughout his skin before he started twitching his finger just to check if it wasn’t falling off again.

It hurt having it back on his skin. It felt like there was someone gripping his wrist, tugging him in a direction he didn’t want to move in. It felt like having it back only flared up the dying flames that still lingered around him, consuming him whole as if he never had a choice in the first place. Now that they knew the string could randomly fall off at any given time, he’s sure he never really had one, _no_ , because Fate is a cruel, sadistic, vicious mistress who promises unconditional love as it shackles you and takes it all away in a whisper. If only they couldn’t see it, he thinks, he wouldn’t have been bothered by it. He wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life worrying about losing someone he never really cared for in the first place.

“What’s up?”

Osamu wanted to scream.

“I hate this,” he had said, ashamed by the way his voice didn’t obey him, quivering as if he’d been crying for hours (which he hadn’t). “What if we weren’t able to see it? It would’ve just fallen off and that would’ve been it, ya know? What if I decided I didn’t want anything to do with it anymore? What if one day I just cut it because I’ve had enough? What then?”

“Then you’ll be soulmateless,” Atsumu replied with a shrug. “Ya said it already. If that’s whatcha want, I don’t see a problem. But is that really somethin’ ya wanna do?”

Yes.

No.

He decided he didn’t want to think about that, not today and maybe not ever. Not when there were long, curved and filthy fingernails digging inside his chest, gripping his heart so hard he thought he was _this close_ to turning into ashes, not when his ankles burned at the mere touch of those ghostly hands that dipped him in molten lava, dragging him down, down, down, until he was being burned alive, until his throat had been rubbed raw from how hard he tried to scream, to plead for help, to ask someone, _anyone, please free me from this shackle_ , even if his voice refused to come out. He decided not to think about it, but Atsumu was still waiting for an answer he wasn’t willing to give.

Osamu shushed him away, waving his hands in the air in dismissal, pretending he never even heard him as he asked _Aren’t ya running late already?_ because the only way to get Atsumu off his back when it came to the string was to mention the person on the other side of his twin’s string. He waved him goodbye as he walked out the door, his feet tangling with whatever was on the floor making him stumble over quite a few times before he was finally out of sight. Feeling the grip in his heart tightening, Osamu managed to choke out _don’t forget the condoms_ just for the sake of it because, well, that’s how they teased each other now. Atsumu had snorted before closing the door, and the oh-so-familiar click of their lock made him spiral down in a fiery sob.

It hurt way too much, that forever tightening grip. He no longer knew where he was being tugged at, no longer knew where those nasty fingernails had been brushing his skin because it was consuming him whole. The string mocked him in a dark reddish shade, shaking and tangling itself around his fingers even when there was no breeze coming from the window, even when he curled up against it, making it so it never even saw the sunlight peeping through the blinds.

His skin had been doused in whatever kind of ruthless, slimy and nasty propellant Fate had reserved especially for him and he was nothing more than a broken toy being pulled by dirty, damaged strings that wrapped so tightly around his limbs that made it impossible for him to fight back. It burned and itched, rubbing his skin in all the wrong ways, so hard it left bruises no one else but him could see. It stretched out across his wrists all the way up to his neck, a greenish purple haze of blood clots under his skin just because Fate liked that kind of thing. It hurt when he moved, it hurt when he breathed, it hurt when he did something as simple and insignificantly small like blinking. Osamu was a pawn controlled by matchmaking, relentless gods who couldn’t care less if he was drowning in a whirlpool of flames that consumed him whole.

It’s glowing brighter now, a wine-like shade, mocking him with a vicious chuckle that warns him there’s nowhere for him to run to. It laughs wholeheartedly as it strangles him, digging soft, tender silk into his skin, marking him for all eternity. It mocks him as it slides down his neck, as it reaches his chest, as it wraps itself around him for a millisecond before it strikes him as fast as it can, as it decided to act as a whip to mark him again and again and again because that’s the kind of thing Fate enjoys. Osamu couldn’t bring himself to even think of a reason why Atsumu feels so comforted by these restraints when even breathing turned into this difficult task, when something as natural as blinking has to be actively acted upon. There are no wasted moves on Fate’s hands, Osamu had come to know, for it is not as forgiving as people once thought – it plays and plays and plays and once it gets bored, it’s over. Once it gets bored, Osamu had come to know, it’ll rip your string apart right before your eyes, it’ll dig its nasty fingernails inside your flesh and tear you up from the inside, it’ll leave you gasping for air as liquid fire takes over you, crawling down your throat and filling your bloodstream with despair as you’re left gasping for air, for something you’ve been promised but never got to experience.

He dared to look down at his string again, the faint glow staring at him back. It should’ve been harmless, a reminder that there was someone around the world who had been made just for him, a reminder that Fate had been kind enough to show him where his string led to, a reminder that he’d instantly know who his perfect match was.

But that wasn’t what he saw.

What stared back at him was a vicious, ruthless smile of an entity that had him wrapped around its little finger, not the other way around. He saw an entity who had as a favorite hobby throwing him around like a ragdoll, making him suffer for its own twisted, fiendish enjoyment and he couldn’t do anything other than close his eyes and hope that, as soon as he opened them again, there would be no trace of a smile or the shackles or the dusty fingertips that held him in a leash. He counted to ten and then twenty, his heart pounding in his chest, the bubbling and sizzling of his own boiling blood echoing in his eardrums as a song he didn’t know the lyrics to.

He opened his eyes.

The string was still there.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Miya Osamu who loved the color red – because red is for passion, for blood, for war, but also for life, for bravery and that’s what his granny used to tell the twins as they looked through thick history books, as she played with their little fingers, telling them the myth of the red string over and over again while they shared knowing glances. Red meant that one second your brain turned off and you could feel the tiny licks of courage propelling you, yelling inside your veins that _I believe in you._ Red was for love – romantic, passionate, ardent, filled with sparks and fireworks, burning so brightly it could consume you whole if you weren’t careful enough. Red, as their granny told them while flipping dusty pages, was what colored the hearts all around the world. Red was the one thing that could burn down a whole empire leaving nothing but dust behind – but it was also the one thing that could raise it back up from the ashes.

Once upon a time, Miya Osamu had learned to love the string around his pinkie. Once upon a time, he thought red was the prettiest color of them all. Once upon a time, he had learned to love the beauty of the roses his father brought home every Saturday, even when they had thorns and ended up slicing his skin open. He still loved red. Until the one day he started to hate it. Until the one day he realized the string wasn’t a legend, wasn’t a beautiful, flawless story.

Red is for blood, for war. Red is for pain and the sudden realization that everything you believed in all throughout your life was a lie. Red wasn’t pretty, red was harsh and cruel and it would drown you in fiery flames if only you’d let it get closer. Red is for roses that feign innocence, pretend to be beautiful and harmless only to sting you and make you bleed out while they laugh silently because red isn’t good. Red is misery, Osamu found out. Red is the worst of them all, is what breaks hearts all around the world, burning down empires leaving nothing but dust and piles and piles of blood in its trail. Red meant massacre and hurt – and so did his string because it glowed as bright as a cherry, mocking him as it hung low behind his pinkie, brushing softly against his skin even when he tried to ignore it.

Now red mocks him as it flows over his textbook pages.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Hm?”

“You looked like you weren’t there for a second,” his project partner whispers as his frown slowly dissipates. “We can reschedule if you’re not feeling up for it today. We still have time to work on this.”

Osamu shakes his head. “I’m good. Just thinking.”

He doesn’t remember when he first noticed Suna Rintarou. He doesn’t know if it had been as soon as he walked inside the classroom, doesn’t know if it had been when he sat down next to him with a light bow of his head or if it had been when the professor took attendance and he finally found out what his name was. Maybe it had been when he saw the cut-off string hanging dully from his pinkie, tied to nothingness but as red as the one tethering between Atsumu and Kiyoomi. Or maybe it had been when he smiled softly as he waved goodbye, saying that _it was nice meeting you, Miya._ Or maybe even when they were assigned to work together in this hellish, endless project. He doesn’t remember when he first noticed Suna Rintarou or the way his eyes have this weird color scheme that makes him want to spend hours deciphering just _what_ kind of yellow shade that is or how it’s possible for it to blend so well into a grayish tone when it gleams so beautifully under the sun. He doesn’t remember when he first felt his heart twist inside his chest when Suna Rintarou smiled at him as he brought him coffee whenever they met up. _You’re too sweet_ , he had said. _Does your girlfriend know you’re bringing someone else treats?_ , and Osamu had shrugged it off, telling him he had no interest in romance. _Your heart is sealed away, then._

He doesn’t remember much, but the one thing he absolutely cannot forget is the way he felt like combusting when he first saw Rintarou’s string, the way it hanged low beneath his finger, untied and wavering alone through the seamless path the afternoon breeze brought along as they left their building and walked shoulder-to-shoulder to grab a coffee and to check out _that new muffin from the cafeteria, come on Miya, I promise you’ll love it._ There’s another thing he absolutely does not forget about Suna Rintarou and that is because it’s not something he can ever deny – he’s beautiful. He has a nice voice and a cute laugh even though he always hides his face when Osamu manages to make him chuckle with a bad joke. His eyes are always rolling around as he pays attention to way too many things at once, his lashes fluttering up and down as he blinks a lot slower than your average person.

But his string is definitely what Osamu is the most captivated by for the first two months of their newfound friendship, their bonding over that one great cup of coffee and the way both of them shared their dorm rooms with loud, annoying people. _Don’t you share a room with your twin, though?,_ followed by a heart-warming laugh when Osamu had shrugged and told him that _this is precisely the problem._

“Thinking about what?” he whispers again.

There aren’t many people in the library, five at most.

Osamu sighs, contemplating his options. He could tell him the truth – he could look at Rintarou’s eyes, the ones he struggled so much to understand, to see beyond his first impressions, devoid of any kind of warmth, and tell him straight-forwardly that, _well, there’s this thing about the string of fate, right?, it’s real and I can see it, and not only that, but I hate my string and you’re not tied to anyone so I might be a little bit jealous of you for not being a mindless puppet on Fate’s hands._ He could tell him the truth – he could advert his eyes and tell him that he’s thinking about him, about nothing in particular, about their regular meetings where they spent hours hunched on top of textbooks as they shared little giggles and whispers about _let’s go out for coffee next time_ but never actively going out for anything other than studying. He could tell him he thinks about his eyes and his lips and his voice right before he falls asleep – and not in a weird way, not at all. He thinks about him when he least expects to and that makes his heart itch as if it’s been suddenly injected with boiling water, as if his whole body is on the edge of the world, hanging on by a thread and he could tell him he doesn’t understand these feelings because he was never supposed to feel them.

Or he could lie.

“I’m just stressed,” he finally replies as Rintarou stares at him with an arched eyebrow. “This project is killing me. That and, well, I can’t bear to look at yer face anymore, Sunarin.”

Rintarou laughs, his hands immediately running over to cup his mouth, muffling the sound as a couple of curious heads turn towards them. He has his eyes closed, hands on his face, hair falling beautifully over his forehead and red string flowing smoothly as his shoulders move in a silent explosion of his own enjoyment. Osamu wonders if he knows how beautiful he looks in that very moment, with the soda-colored sky painting him in golden and pink splatters, with his hair a mess and a red, vivid string waving at him as if it’s asking why it’s not connected to him as it should be. Osamu almost shrugs in response, wanting to ask the same questions. Fate did him wrong, wanting him to long for someone that doesn’t belong to anyone while he’s shackled to a complete stranger, while Fate carves its phantom fingertips on his flesh and drags him down to the pits of hellish despair.

“So you’re telling me you want a new project buddy?” he asks, voice choked and weird as he struggles to keep his chuckles inside.

“Precisely,” Osamu nods, his lips breaking into a smile. “Yer too slow to keep up with me.”

“Oh,” he snorts. “So that’s what it’s about. In this case I think I’m the one who should ask for a new partner since all you do is look around the library without paying attention to a single thing I say, wouldn’t you think so?”

Osamu squints at him as a chuckle escapes his throat. “Touché.”

It’s only in moments like these that Osamu feels the flaming whirlpool subsiding. It’s only in moments like these, when Rintarou is chuckling along with him, when he’s hunched over the same textbook, complaining endlessly about how _this is useless, why do we have to do a presentation on it, anyways?_ , when he stares at him with those unreadable eyes that Osamu feels like the grip in his throat has gone away and he can finally breathe, his lungs rejoicing, the breath of fresh air quenching the flames on his bloodstream. He wonders if Rintarou doesn’t feel out of place, if he doesn’t think he’s a misfit somehow, not having his string connected to anyone. _Not that it means anything_ , his brain reasons with him.

While Atsumu had always been comforted by his string and found joy in following it around, Osamu dreaded the idea of being tied to someone. He never understood the beauty in it, being tied to someone you never knew, being forced to meet a stranger and fall in love with them because Fate said you should. He never understood the warmth of this restraining cage, this silky prison that never allowed you to take a step without being pulled back and reminded that _that’s not where you’re supposed to go, your soulmate is on the other side._

Osamu wonders what Atsumu would tell him if he said he’s in love with someone who doesn’t have a soulmate. Not that he is, this is just a hypothetical situation. He’s not in love, absolutely not. He wonders if he’ll scream and punch the wall in excitement or if he’ll sulk and tell him he’s defying Fate, going against the path laid out in front of him. He wonders if he’ll be happy or if he’ll be upset. He wonders if he’ll say he can do what he wants with his life as long as he can stay with Kiyoomi because _he’s the one I chose, the one I would’ve chosen even if Fate hadn’t tied us together._ Watching them as he did, Osamu knows it’s true.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Rintarou whispers again, eyes squinted and gleaming in excitement. “Unless you’re planning to tell me to get out of your life. If that’s what it is then I’m already refusing. You’re never escaping me, Miya.”

“Ya talk like yer my soulmate or somethin’,” Osamu clicks his tongue.

Rintarou lets his head fall to the side. “That would be nice, don’t you think?”

“Being soulmates with ya?”

It would.

He’s thought about it so many times already he doesn’t even need time to think. Osamu thinks their string would glow as bright as Christmas lights, a red so strong it’d be blinding. He thinks it wouldn’t feel restricting, but warm and comfortable instead of rash and cruel. He thinks he might learn to love the string’s presence if Rintarou was the one on the other side, if Rintarou had always been the one on the other side. He thinks he’d be able to take deep breaths without feeling like he was on the brink of spontaneous combustion. Maybe then Fate would leave him alone, he thinks.

Yeah, it would be nice.

But he doesn’t say it, the words too heavy as they roll around on his tongue.

“Why?” he asks instead.

“We’re together all the time anyway,” Rintarou shrugs. “What difference would it make?”

The fact that Osamu is constantly being toyed with, he thinks. The fact that his heart is being pierced so, so many times he’s lost count of how many bleeding holes it has. The fact that he wouldn’t be drowning in despair, wouldn’t be unable to breathe as flammable liquid is poured down his throat relentlessly, leaving him no choice but to swallow it all as it makes its way around his whole body, leaving him in the brink of self-destruction. The fact that he’s unable to come to terms with his own feelings because there’s someone else tied to him that’s not the person he wants. The fact that he can’t close his eyes at night because he’s afraid of being pulled down by his ankles to the pits of hell, choking on chunks of molten lava that crawl under his skin and melt him to his very core.

The fact that everything would be different except for the fact that he’s burning up, drenched from head to toe in desire – and not because Fate made him jump in gasoline, not because Fate did it itself, not because Fate pulled him down by his ankles, holding his head down and making him drown. He’s burning up in desire despite the string tied to his pinkie, despite the way Fate toys with him as a kid plays with their favorite toy.

He wonders what Rintarou would say if Osamu told him he can see the strings.

“Did ya ever wonder if soulmates are real?” Osamu manages to choke out.

Rintarou squints and then pouts. “Not really. I’m not really interested in the stars or the universe or anything like that. Existing is already too big of a hassle; I don’t need to worry about every single person in the world and what they think of me because _what if that one is my soulmate_ -kind-of-thing, you know?”

Osamu nods.

“Ah!” he suddenly exclaims, a smug smirk on his face. “But I wouldn’t mind if _you_ were my soulmate. You already know me way too well, I wouldn’t be surprised if the universe just decided to put us both in a little soulmate box thingy.”

 _I would_ , he wants to say.

But he doesn’t.

 _I would because there’s something inherently terrifying about the way my heart sparks up and hops around as it’s slowly consumed by flames when you’re around._ He would because there’s no way he wouldn’t. He would because the very thought of being tied to somebody else made his stomach coil, because he already knew everything there was to know about Suna Rintarou, like the way he liked his coffee to the way his nose scrunched up a bit when he laughed. He already knew he didn’t like moving around too much but he’d still go on walks with Osamu after class. He wants to tell him he _would_ because there’s absolutely no way he wouldn’t be. He wants to tell him he can see the strings, wants to tell him he can touch them and manipulate them and he wants to tell him there’s no one else at the other side of his string, wants to ask him if he’d mind if Osamu tied their strings together.

But he doesn’t – not because the words are too heavy for his tongue, not because they don’t come out. He doesn’t say it because it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He doesn’t say it because Fate doesn’t care about their feelings, it just wants to play around and break their hearts with a thousand flaming arrows that dig deep into their flesh, forever reminding them that there’s no other option but obey and dance along with the puppeteer’s moves.

“There’s no way yer my soulmate, ya doofus,” is what he says instead.

Rintarou chuckles in a low tone. “Of course I’m not,” he winks. “You’ve got someone better waiting for you out there. There’s no way a peasant like me would ever be fit to stand beside such a majestic king like you.”

 _There’s no way there’s someone better than you_ , he wants to say.

 _There’s no way there’s someone who could ever replace you_ , he wants to say, _even if your string flows effortlessly at the slightest breeze, tied to nothing and no one, even if my own string ties me to someone I don’t even know, even if we’re not a match made by all-knowing gods, even if we weren’t necessarily born for each other. There’s no one else._

But he doesn’t.

“Where did the peasant talk come from?” Osamu snorts, lowering his head just so he could look him in the eyes. “Have ya been watching those weird period dramas again?”

“Pfft,” is what comes out of Rintarou’s mouth as he tilts his head to the side, a smirk breaking his lips apart. “People talk, Miya. And I happen to overhear a lot.”

“Oh?”

Osamu can’t help the gasp that comes out of his mouth when Rintarou swipes his finger through the top of his hand, through each finger until it reaches his pinkie. He’s smiling, something mischievous burning in his eyes and Osamu can’t help but stare, his mouth hanging open and heart about to burst. He doesn’t need Fate’s intervention to feel like he’s being swallowed by big, hungry flames when Rintarou stared at him like _that_ , touching the very thing he’d learned to hate the most. He couldn’t see the string, Osamu knew that. He couldn’t feel the string, Osamu also knew that – but judging from how hard he was staring at him, not blinking even once, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, teeth biting into his bottom lip so hard it became white, Osamu started to doubt what he thought he knew before. Maybe Rintarou did see the string, maybe he did know what he was doing. Or maybe Osamu was just wishing he did, wishing he’d laugh it off and tell him that _if you get flustered this easily people will start teasing you._ He almost tells him he’s the only one who has this much control over him, that no one else would ever be able to make him throw away his rationality and willingly let the flames consume him, bringing him to the very edge.

Rintarou’s skin is soft and warm. His nails scrape along the string and Osamu shudders unconsciously, blushing when their eyes meet. Rintarou arches his eyebrows, snickering when another shudder bursts through, when his eyes close and he feels the warmth rising up to his cheeks. He never once thought he’d enjoy the heat that comes along with touch, with intimacy, the feverish brush of one’s skin against his own, the brush of their fingers together, the way his string moved out of the way as Rintarou touched it as if it _knew_ he’d have the power to tear it off. Osamu almost pleads with him, begging on his knees, _please rip it off, let me be free of this veiled thread that imprisons my every breath, my every waking moment, I beg of you_ – but he doesn’t. How could he?

“They say you’re cold,” Rintarou goes on. “They say you never agree to go out after class because you’re in a relationship with someone whose face is a mystery, because you’re in a relationship with your soulmate or something like that. I know that’s not true because you’re always hanging out with _me_ after class.”

“That sounds like yer telling me ya wanna be my soulmate, Sunarin,” Osamu replies with a soft chuckle as he tries to shun away the warmth over his cheeks, the knot inside his throat. It doesn’t work.

“Am I?” he winks. “Hm, I don’t think we’d work.”

“How so?”

He doesn’t reply, leaving Osamu with a bitter aftertaste at the back of his tongue. Instead, he looks out the window and presses down on Osamu’s string before closing his textbooks and smirking at him with an arched eyebrow. _I don’t think I’ll grab that coffee today_ , he says as he gets up, his hair slowly falling over his forehead, his eyes gleaming with something Osamu doesn’t even begin to comprehend until Rintarou is already walking away, his whole body swaying as if he’s waltzing through the stacks, as if he’s trying to grab Osamu’s attention for just a bit longer – and _that_ he does very well. There’s a hint of red as the tiny string sways along with his every move, a hint of freedom Osamu will never get to experience. He doesn’t know if he envies him or if he wants to make it so it doesn’t sway into nothingness, but into his own string, into his arms and into his heart.

Maybe that’s why he feels like the string wrapping around his wrist burns him. Maybe that’s why he feels like choking to death when it whooshes by his arm, brushing the sensitive skin as if it’s reminding him that there’s nowhere he can run to – as if he didn’t know that already, as if the thought didn’t keep him up at night in his empty dorm room. Maybe that’s why he feels like dying every time Rintarou mentions soulmates, every time he mentions relationships. Or maybe he’s just being pathetic, thinking way too much, worrying about the tiniest things as he always does. Maybe.

He stares at the empty spot in front of him and imagines a whole different scenario. He wonders what Rintarou would have said if he told him he was one of the few people in the world who could see the string. He wonders what Rintarou would have said if he told him he’d been touching it so tenderly as he traced patterns onto his skin, wonders if he’d be embarrassed to be seen doing something so intimate with someone he wasn’t even interested in. Osamu thinks he would be, cheeks tainted with a scarlet shade, mouth shut in a straight line, eyes closed and nose scrunched up. He wonders what Rintarou would have said if he told him he liked him – not love, not yet. He wonders if he would’ve said it back or if his answer would be a shrug followed by a warm smile or even if he’d be painfully rejected. He wonders what Rintarou would’ve said if he told him his string wasn’t tied to anything. Osamu thinks he’d laugh and nod, his teeth glowing brightly as he squinted. _I belong to no one, then. That sounds fitting_ , is what he thinks Rintarou would have said.

As he gathers his textbooks, he can’t help but touch his string with the tip of his fingers as it twitches with his every move. It’s faintly glowing, its shade slightly duller than before. He frowns as it becomes hazier and hazier, coming to a halt for a couple of minutes, completely loose and lifeless only to spring back up in a vivid dark pink, almost red, before it twitches as if Fate doubted its choice for a second. He blinked once and then twice, running his fingers through the fabric’s extension over the table only to see for himself that _ah, it burns._

* * *

There are very few things Osamu enjoys more than the swift movement of the sun as it slowly rolls across the sky in an explosion of shades that are never quite the same that enthralls him. The cool, orange dusk being threatened by shades of indigo or the sweet, peach shade being dragged down by a soft lilac only to end up in a dark purple. The way the clouds move, shades intertwining in a whole new canvas every single day makes him feel like the boiling blood travelling at light-speed through his veins isn’t all that bad. The way the wind seems cooler as soon as the sun decides it’s time to pack up and disappear makes him feel like his own blood cools down in response. The way the string twitches and comes to a halt as soon as the sky is enveloped in a dark sheet as if it’s saying goodnight makes him sigh in relief every single day as he sips his last drops of unsweetened coffee before heading home to listen to his brother’s babbles about his soulmate.

Kiyoomi is a nice guy who doesn’t talk too much when he’s not talked to first. He’s polite and overly cautious of his surroundings, pretty much the opposite of that ill-mannered, dumbass brother of his. It’s a wonder Fate even thought about bringing those two together and even more wondrous was the fact that they fell for each other despite all of that. Maybe it _is_ true what people say about opposites attracting and all that philosophy around such a fleeting, volatile emotion.

They say you know when you meet your soulmate. They say you hear silver bells and they say you smell their favorite things. They say it burns when the string shortens, they say it feels like your pinkie is being torn off because it hurts a lot more than it probably should. Osamu disagrees, because he doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t hear anything other than people chatting happily as they walk around campus, he doesn’t smell anything other than the cold coffee in front of him and the floral breeze that messes up his hair in the weirdest hairstyle to ever exist. He doesn’t feel it burning more than it usually burns, he doesn’t feel it tugging at his skin more than it usually does. They say the string glows in a burgundy shade when you’re close to your soulmate but Osamu has never seen it glow as anything other than a shade of shy red, a fiery dark pink at most.

He hates that shade with a passion that burns like scorching fire. He hates the way it flows freely on the wind, as it grows shorter and shorter and someone’s silhouette shows up in the distance. He hates how he’s suddenly unable to move because Fate gave its little ragdoll a command, told him to stay put and wait for the one it chose for him. He hates how his throat closes in on itself as he tries to gulp down his uneasiness, as he tries to gulp down the scarce molecules of oxygen his body needs to survive, but to no avail. His lungs jump around inside his chest as they’re squeezed dry, burning and pleading for mercy, for any kind of relief and that’s the one thing Osamu can’t do because his body no longer belongs to him.

Ah.

It _does_ burn when you meet, he realizes when he meets the face of his fated one.

The phantom feeling of those burning hands on his throat seems to subside a bit when their eyes meet, when the guy shoots him a coy smile and Osamu wonders if his heart was supposed to flip around like Atsumu always said it happened to him when Kiyoomi was around. He wonders if his lungs are supposed to be in this much pain, if his throat is supposed to be this dry and if his hands are supposed to be shaking because they’re not and he doesn’t get why. Maybe because Fate decided he wasn’t fit for the person it chose for him after all, and that was its way to show him that, yeah, the string will fall off his pinkie sometime soon and this time there’ll be no retying it. Maybe Fate decided he wasn’t cut out to have a soulmate, after all, or maybe it got bored of playing with him and that was its way of discarding him without too much of a mess.

His heart doesn’t flip around and his lungs hurt. His eyes aren’t hazy and he doesn’t feel lightheaded as the myth said he would be. He blinks once and then twice and maybe a few more times until the string wrapped around his pinkie twitches on its own again and there’s a shadow being cast over him as a sweet voice calls out to him in a soft, “Are you alright?”

According to the myth, the sound of your fated one’s voice is enough to make all your worries disappear because you’re finally safe, you’ve finally found your other half, the one you’d been looking for. According to the myth, their presence is enough to make the string finally show its true color, for it to wrap around two beings and finally bring them together as a whole as it was always supposed to be, a feisty, burning scarlet that could spark up in flames at the slightest brush of a finger. Osamu watched his brother’s string whenever Kiyoomi was around, watched as it flowed so smoothly as it tethered between them, watched it glowing as red as blood, as bright as a freshly bloomed lycoris bulb. He wonders, then, why his own string has a faint, pinkish glow to it even when he’s never seen it this light, even when he can clearly see it connecting to that stranger’s little finger. He wonders, then, why he doesn’t feel the rush of adrenaline dawning upon him as the myths claimed he’d feel, why he doesn’t feel like everything is suddenly so much brighter. He wonders if Atsumu lied to him about feeling all of that. He wonders if Fate truly got bored of toying around with him and that was its way of telling him that he had no choice but to lower his head and obey.

Unchosen, unneeded, harsh words linger around in his thoughts and haunt him with the sudden realization that his string isn’t supposed to be this light, isn’t supposed to mimic the soft, pastel pink shade that had been slowly fading from the sky as darkness started to settle. As the man in front of him continues to ask if he’s okay, his eyebrows tightly glued to one another as he waves in front of his eyes, Osamu feels a scream trying to burst through his throat, feels his fingers tremble in what he could only describe as anxiety brought by uncertainty. Because of course his twin, his literal other half would get the easy flow, would get the best path while he’d be forever bound to a thorny path that pinched him with every step he dared to take.

“Do you want me to call someone for you?” the guy asks again.

Osamu blinks once and then twice and maybe a few more times than what was actually necessary because _he’s pretty_ , is what he thinks. He’s not mind-blown as Atsumu said he’d be, he’s not feeling it in the string, he’s not feeling anything other than utter confusion and probably a migraine. The guy is still standing next to him and Osamu tries his best to smile softly at him although, he thinks, it probably looks like he’s having a stroke from how hard his face twists, how weirdly his nose scrunches up and _fuck, he’s never wanted a soulmate to begin with._

According to the myth, Osamu recalls, you’re supposed to think your soulmate is the personification of perfection. He _was_ pretty, with soft blue eyes and a faint blush on his cheeks. His hair seemed soft at a first glance, falling softly on his forehead. He looked like someone he’d enjoy being around, really, but because of the string forcing them together he had no interest in him whatsoever – even if his voice was sweeter than what he would have expected from him, even when that glimpse of worry made it tremble, even if his eyes sparkled just like the twinkling stars that are just now spreading across the dark, infinite sheet that the sky has become.

“I’m good,” Osamu manages to choke out.

He smiles.

Osamu thinks he’s supposed to be feeling something – relief, excitement, literally anything other than the good old _I’m tired and I wanna go home._ He doesn’t, though. True, the guy’s got a pretty nice smile and the blushing cheeks are definitely a bonus, but something about the pinkish string doesn’t sit well with him. The myths couldn’t be all wrong. Atsumu is an idiot sometimes, but Osamu saw the way his string burned so brightly, completely engulfed in fiery desire to bring two linked people together. True, he had never wanted a soulmate. True, he couldn’t care less about following Fate’s self-centered agenda. True, he couldn’t care less about the stars and Fate and all that when he was already neck-deep in flammable quicksand, but this guy was just standing there, completely oblivious to the fact that they were linked, completely oblivious to the fact that the string tethering so smoothly between them was almost white in a way Osamu couldn’t even begin to comprehend. _Fuck me sideways, this is not what I wanted._

“Do you need some help to get to your dorm room?” he offers. “I could help.”

Osamu nods at him and then shakes his head. The guy laughs.

“Which one is it?”

“’m fine,” he says back, nodding at him.

“That’s not what I asked, though,” he replies with a chuckle. “I could sit around with you and wait for a roommate to come and get you. Do you want me to call them for you? Come on, you don’t look so good.”

Osamu can only stare at him in disbelief as he mutters that “I live alone,” even if it’s a lie.

“Right” he nods. “Then I’ll have to ask again. Do you need help to get to your dorm room?”

“I don’t even know you.”

When the guy laughs, Osamu feels his string tickling his palm, sliding up and wrapping itself so tightly around his wrist that it hurts. He feels his blood rushing around inside his veins, his heart pounding so hard he thinks he’s gone deaf, his eyes suddenly hazy and _fuck, he’s about to pass out._ It doesn’t feel good, this warmth circling him, trapping him in a ring of fire he can’t find the exit to. He’s been engulfed by harsh, pale flames that seem to follow him everywhere he goes, everywhere he looks and _this guy is not who I want_ is what his brain screams at him as he tries to reply that _and you think I don’t know that?_ , as he tries to stop his hands from shaking, as he tries to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth but even that seems overcomplicated because he can’t see straight and the string is pulling him forward, tugging his body up as phantom hands wrap themselves around his throat, around his ankles, and their grip is so tight Osamu really thinks he’s dying. He’s being tugged down and pulled up, he’s being choked and he’s being scratched, completely engulfed in raw, harsh heat that makes him so dizzy he’s gripping at the edges of his chair so hard his fingers turn white, his blood a mess of bubbling substances and he’s burning in the worst way possible.

“And I don’t know you,” the guy replies with a chuckle. “Hi, I’m Akaashi Keiji. I’m from the Literature Department. Nice to meet you.”

He has a nice name, is what Osamu thinks before he’s choked by ghost fingers. He has a nice voice, is what Osamu thinks before he’s dragged down through relentless waves of hot lava that crawl through his skin and into his body through every pore it finds. He has a nice smile, is what Osamu thinks before he’s pulled upwards only to be dragged down again and again and again in an endless loop that sends his heart out of his throat, pumping nothing more than a propeller to fan up the flames through his bloodstream, igniting him whole until he explodes and there’s nothing left of him. He has a nice name and a nice face and a nice smile – but he’s not who Osamu wants to be burning for.

“Now will you accept my help?”

He’s witty, Osamu notes.

“You still don’t know me,” is what he says back.

“Fair enough,” he giggles. “What’s your name, newfound companion?”

Osamu doesn’t mean to, but he smiles. Akaashi Keiji has a cute laugh and a nice smile, is one of the first things he notices. His eyes sparkle whenever Osamu looks directly at them and his lips are too chapped for their own good. His hair is messy, pointing everywhere, and he has dark bags under his eyes that make him look like he hasn’t slept in a few days – and maybe he hasn’t. Their string tethers between them, a light pink flowing along with the breeze calmly, beautifully, just like the lyrics to that one song he couldn’t stop thinking about a few weeks back. It doesn’t burn anymore, but it tingles softly as it sends waves of numbness all throughout his arm. It doesn’t burn anymore, but the way it moves makes it seem even more constricting than before and Osamu wonders if Akaashi can’t feel it as he does, if he can’t see it as it wavers between them. Judging from the way he’s still staring at him, he bets he doesn’t.

“I’m fine, ya don’t have to worry ‘bout me,” he finally replies.

“Unusual name,” Akaashi points out before reaching out a hand to him. “Nice to meet you, _I’m fine, ya don’t have to worry ‘bout me._ ”

“Funny.”

He thinks that’ll be it – he’ll make a snarky comment and Akaashi will step back and realize he’s not really up for talking. He thinks he’ll take a step back and wave goodbye as he says a soft _nice to meet you, see you around_ , but he doesn’t. He’s still standing next to him, looking at the sky as the breeze softly ruffles his hair, their string copying the movement of his dark locks. Osamu feels something tugging at his feet, those ghostly, cold hands pulling him down again as he realizes that there’s no escape. He can either drown in hot lava or let himself be carried to the shore by the same forceful liquid that once tried to engulf him whole. Fire stirs a cauldron that scalds his skin as he locks eyes with Akaashi again, as he forces himself to smile, as he forces himself to stand up and nod at him with the most condescending expression he can make. Akaashi smiles back.

Osamu learns a lot about the dark-haired, blue-eyed guy Fate connected to him as they walk towards his building. He learns that Akaashi loves poetry and tea, he learns that he likes instrumental music and late-night walks. He learns that his favorite food is somewhat unconventional and that he’s teased a lot for enjoying it. Osamu doesn’t mean to, but he asks some things that are probably too personal for two complete strangers to be talking about – and Akaashi is an even stranger person, he learns, because he doesn’t mind him asking. They exchange phone numbers even if his brain is yelling at him in revulsion, even if he feels his throat closing in on itself because _that’s not what you’re supposed to be doing, you said it yourself, check again, go back_.

He gets a text with a single smiling face as Akaashi disappears into the night again.

“I found my soulmate.”

He says it simply, in-between bites and not daring to look up. Atsumu chokes while Kiyoomi moves to the side instinctively as Osamu hears his brother coughing and choking out words he can’t quite comprehend. It’s only when he takes a deep, wheezing breath and Kiyoomi sits down again that Osamu dares to look up at them. His string is lifeless as it hangs down from his pinkie and he can see Atsumu’s eyebrows sliding up as he locks eyes with it, his mouth hanging open as his eyes widen, still teary and red. Kiyoomi doesn’t say anything, staring at Osamu as if he’s asking _so?, what’s the big deal?_

“My string is pink,” he tells him.

Kiyoomi nods. “Is that bad?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs and Kiyoomi only hums in response.

Atsumu, on the other hand, seems like he’s choking on his own words as his mouth opens and closes and opens and closes indefinitely as he stares at Osamu as if the world is crumbling down on top of their heads. They’ve seen lots of different strings – they’ve seen them wavering along with the breeze but also rigid, hard to the touch. They’ve seen them tangle and they’ve seen them being broken right before their eyes. They’ve seen them withering, fading into darker shades the more two connected people distance themselves and they’ve also seen frayed, delicate strings, almost faded due to unforeseen circumstances. They’ve seen them twined, stretching out and diverging in wavering paths as they connect more than two people. They’ve seen them as red as blood, they’ve seen them almost black, they’ve seen them show a burgundy, rusty shade right before they snap and they’ve seen them light, baby pink almost translucent in the morning light just before they faded away. But for both of them, seeing it lying low in a peach-like shade was new – and new is absolutely terrifying.

While Osamu tries not to think too much about it, Atsumu looks like there’s steam coming out of his ears as his brain comes up with explanations for that shade, for that behavior he’s never seen before and all Kiyoomi can do is watch as he slowly munches on his food, nodding whenever Atsumu looks at him and goes _right?!_

“How are they like?” Kiyoomi speaks up again.

“He’s okay,” Osamu replies, not daring to look up at his brother. “We exchanged phone numbers after he brought me home. He thought I wasn’t feeling well and was kind enough to walk me here.”

“Sounds like a nice guy.”

“I guess?”

He feels Atsumu’s eyes burning holes in his face, feels like he’ll go up in flames if their eyes touch just because he’s _that_ pissed, just because Osamu didn’t think about telling him when his string changed, when he first felt its tug, when he finally met the one on the other side of his string, calling him to tell him how it felt because _that’s what yer supposed to do, ya know?, I told you all about Omi._

“But he’s not who you want,” Kiyoomi mumbles as he sips his drink.

Osamu looks up, mouth hanging open, food midway into his mouth. He lays his chopsticks down, slides his bowl away from him and rests his elbows on the table. Kiyoomi doesn’t bother to look at him, completely entranced by his food, completely ignoring the two men who are now looking at him as if he’s just discovered another galaxy after merely glancing at a telescope, as if he’s just recited all of the trillions of digits of Pi. Kiyoomi doesn’t seem to mind the attention as he slurps his noodles and wipes his mouth, not once looking up at them, not once bothering to elaborate on what he just said, leaving the twins to share dumbfounded glances.

“He’s not,” Osamu replies, his voice cracked and weird. “How’d ya know?”

“I see you around campus,” he shrugs as he munches on his noodles again. “It’s not that hard to notice the way you look at him. I bumped into him the other day at the library. He’s got really nice eyes.”

“He does.”

“And also,” Kiyoomi goes on, finally looking up at Osamu. “You’re not that subtle.”

Now he feels like the ghostly hands around his ankles mock him as they tug him down, as they wrap their nasty fingernails around his skin and dig them into his flesh, pulling, pulling, pulling until he feels the bubbling of the lava at his feet, slowly reaching his skin and making a silent scream hitch on his throat because all of a sudden it doesn’t hurt like he thought it would. It engulfs him, swallowing him whole as he’s dipped inside a volcano he’s not even sure if it’s active anymore. He feels the ghostly hands wrapping around his throat, but they don’t grip tight, they don’t grip at all – they’re just there, their touch merely a spark travelling around his skin. It’s not comfortable, but it’s no longer restraining and suffocating. Osamu wonders if that’s how his brother felt like when he met Kiyoomi.

His cheeks warm up when Atsumu looks at him, a huge question mark floating above his head.

“I think I’m in love with someone,” he says with a shrug.

“Ya _think?!”_

“I think,” he nods. “He’s someone I’ve been working on a project with for a few months now.”

“Does he have a string?” Kiyoomi asks with arched eyebrows.

“No,” Osamu replies before shaking his head. “No, he does!”

“Does he have one or not?” Atsumu’s voice is high-pitched and choked as he plunges forward, his chin almost touching his bowl, his hands balled into fists over the table, his eyes desperately looking for something hiding in-between his words, anything he could get. “I can’t believe ya didn’t tell me anything, Samu.”

“I hadn’t realized it yet,” he shrugs. “Ya can’t blame me if I’m not an expert in things like that. I’ll let ya throw a pillow at me like ya did when ya were moping around, desperately pining after Omi-kun.”

At that, Kiyoomi’s lips break into a smug smirk as he looks at Atsumu with an arched brow. He clicks his tongue before he murmurs a low “ _Oh?_ Did he now?”

“I did no such thing!” Atsumu complains, shooting daggers at his brother. “What’s his name? Does he or does he not have a string? Yer killing me here.”

Osamu snorts. “He does have a string but it’s not connected to anything. It just hangs around his finger, I guess,” he sighs. “And I’m not telling ya his name, ya creep. Don’t go stalking him or something.”

“I would never!” Atsumu complains. “Lemme ask you this, then. Is he pretty?”

His hands are sweaty all of a sudden and he still feels way too hot, sweat crawling desperately slow on his back, dripping from his hair and onto his forehead. His throat hurts as if it’s been rubbed raw from a silent scream he never got to release, from an itch he’s never free of, from the fire bubbling on his stomach. He coughs once and then twice, choking on his own spit, almost chuckling when Kiyoomi slides a bit further back on his chair, almost crying when he feels the string twitching and tugging on his pinkie so softly he thinks he’s imagined it. Blood rushes so fast through his veins, through his head, that he’s momentarily deaf. The ghostly hands aren’t tugging on him anymore, but he still feels the agonizing pressure of having been lit on an imaginary fire, of being in the brink of insanity, of gripping at the edges of the world to feel something other than raw despair for having turned at the wrong path, the one Fate explicitly told him he couldn’t turn at.

His heart is being gripped tightly by dark fingernails he’s never met before, his lungs are gasping, thrashing around his chest because it’s _burning_ , it’s going up in dark blue flames and he can’t do anything other than gasp for air because he’s in love with someone who’s not bound to anyone, he’s in love with someone he’s not connected to just because Fate decided it had other plans for him and it shouldn’t have been hurting this much, but it does and he can’t breathe. _Fuck the string_ , his brain tries to reason, _it doesn’t mean anything_ , his brain yells at him, but this time he doesn’t think he can believe it.

Osamu feels his eyes burning with unshed tears he refuses to release.

“The prettiest I’ve ever seen,” he replies, finally.

Atsumu smiles. “Samu,” he calls.

“Yeah?”

“Yer gay is showing.”

* * *

Miya Osamu is a fast learner and for the past three weeks he’s learned a lot about Akaashi Keiji, from the way he likes his coffee to the most important thing of them all. They meet up before his classes to share a nice cup of coffee and, sometimes, a slice of that one chocolate cake Akaashi seems to like so much. Osamu memorizes every little thing Akaashi tells him, from his favorite books to his skincare routine, from his favorite food to his deepest insecurities – and it feels nice to talk to someone this openly, it feels nice to find comfort somewhere other than his own room. The string twitches softly whenever Akaashi is around, it stretches painfully when he walks around him with a smug smirk as he asks _did you buy that coffee for me?_ and Osamu can’t do anything other than sigh and hand him the drink he had, in fact, bought for himself.

Akaashi tells him about his family, about how he’s an only child, about how he’s always lived surrounded by books and how he’d learned how to love words and build a thousand palaces out of paragraphs when things didn’t go well at home. He tells Osamu about his favorite book, about every plot point he thought was worth mentioning, about every character he so passionately thought of before falling asleep. Akaashi tells him about the first time he fell in love and how fast he fell out of love, telling him such a fleeting emotion scared him to death and how, once again, the fortresses he built with words were his only comfort. Akaashi tells him he’s usually shy around people, that he usually doesn’t talk this much, that maybe deep inside he’s always known Osamu would be coming for him just like in a poetry book. Osamu can only shrug as he feels the oh-so-familiar tug in his ankles, dragging him down, down, down, until Akaashi chuckles, coffee splattering everywhere. _Maybe we were always destined to meet, Osamu. Maybe there’s a different string wrapped around us that says we’ll be the ones to support each other when our hearts can’t take it anymore_. Osamu liked the idea of it. Maybe that’s why the string tethering between them glowed in a faint pink he’d never seen before. Maybe that’s why he didn’t feel like he was being commanded by Fate whenever he saw gunmetal blue staring at him with a sparkling, mischievous burn in them.

So he listens.

At first Akaashi would always call him _Myaa-sam_ and its derivatives, not even once daring to say his first name, not even once daring to suggest anything but the good, old, comfortable _Myaa-sam._ At first Akaashi wouldn’t talk about anything other than classes and assignments and the books he was reading as they shared a slice of cake or pie or the new rice balls from the cafeteria. At first Akaashi didn’t really like to meet his eyes. Fast-forward a few weeks, a few months, and Osamu was no longer _Myaa-sam_ and Akaashi was no longer _Akaashi-san._ Now Osamu knew everything there was to know about Akaashi Keiji, from the way he liked his coffee to the most important thing of them all – that he’s in love with someone that isn’t him.

If he had to count, he’d say he’s lost at least a month of good sleep because of Keiji’s late-night conversations. If he had to count, he’d say he hears the phrase _the golden of his eyes that burns and melts everything, me included, and everything I wish I could tell him_ at least four times a day. If he had to count, he’d say he’s heard more of Bokuto Koutarou’s name in these last few weeks than he’s heard his own.

“When are ya telling him?” he asks as he sips his coffee.

Keiji widens his eyes, mouth hanging open. “I’m not.”

“Why?”

Now that’s something they do a lot.

They’ve talked about favorite books and favorite foods, they’ve talked about family and friends and they’ve talked about their majors. They’ve talked about everything they could’ve possibly talked about – as they met up before class, as they went out together on the weekends to see for themselves if that new restaurant was as good as people were saying it was, as they shared a futon and giggled like kids whenever one of them yawned because _it’s not that late yet, you’re just weak._ They’ve talked about feelings and the ones they’d rip their hearts out for, their string twitching as soon as the words left their mouths, tightening its grip on their pinkies as if it was trying to remind them that they were destined by a silky, bright thread Fate weaved itself, by something they could never go against.

“He’s a romantic,” Keiji replies with a soft shrug, a sad smile plastered on his face. “He believes the whole soulmate thing, that there’s this matchmaking entity around that makes us unable to choose who we fall for and whatnot, that it binds us together with the red string and all.”

Osamu hums. “Do ya?”

“Hm?”

“Believe in the soulmate thing,” he sips his coffee, looking at Keiji with arched eyebrows. “D’ya think there really is a thread tying ya to somebody else, wrapping ‘round yer finger and making it impossible for ya to live without abiding to its rules?”

“No,” Keiji smiles. “But he does. He said I’m not tied to him, I couldn’t be. He said there was someone better out there who would definitely be literally wrapped around my little finger because Fate deemed them worthy of me and so… I’m not telling him. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Osamu pretends he doesn’t see the way Keiji’s lips protrude forward, the way he looks like a frustrated toddler as he closes his eyes and inhales deeply, not daring to look at him until his hands stopped shaking. Osamu feels their string twitching, feels it tugging him forward, feels it burning where it wraps around his finger, where it digs into his skin like the dark fingernails that he’s grown so used to after so many years. Being around Keiji is nothing like he thought it would be when they first met. Being around him meant easy smiles and light giggles, it meant warmth and comfort in a way he never knew he needed. Being around him brought bitter coffee and sweet pastries, good food and cheap wine. Being around him meant not feeling the drag of those slender, sharp nails around his throat, meant not feeling those phantom hands dragging him inside their own lava pool, meant not feeling his heart being gripped so tightly he thought he was about to die.

“I’ll tell ya what then,” Osamu says, finally, after a few good minutes in silence. Keiji still doesn’t open his eyes. “The string doesn’t mean anything, it really doesn’t. Yer gonna regret it for the rest of yer damn life letting this guy go when I can clearly see how much ya love him. The string is here and it won’t go away, isn’t that what they say? Then let it be here and watch ya being in love and happy with someone that isn’t tied to it. Let it watch and curl up in shame because it won’t ever be enough to go against what yer feeling. Fuck the string.”

Keiji nods, a soft smile on his face.

Osamu can only smile back before his lips are torn apart by a chuckle. “Fuck the string,” he says again and again and again and soon Keiji is laughing along with him and they’re both repeating those words like a mantra because, really, _fuck the string._ It twitches and thrashes as they say it over and over again, as they ignore its presence and its constant reminder that they were a match made by something they couldn’t, theoretically, go against. The ghost touches are back, their fingers wrapping around his throat, around his ankles, around his wrists and everywhere else they can touch, squeezing and digging their nails in his flesh, making him bleed boiling water instead of blood, making him squeeze his eyes shut as he laughs because Keiji has that kind of laugh that makes you want to join and they’re both gasping for air now, they’re both entangled in the peach-colored string that flutters with the wind like a butterfly that is, just now, learning how to take flight and it is as beautiful to watch as Keiji is when he first shows up in the morning, a light grin on his face while his eyes twinkle with that half-asleep drowsiness that screams _Akaashi Keiji_ , with that childish eagerness whenever he spots Osamu in the crowd. They were a match made in heaven, alright, but for all of the reasons Fate has failed to consider.

He’s still laughing even when their grip tightens, even when the string tugs him forward so hard he’s scared it’ll break his skin, even when Keiji sighs in relief as he flops down on his chair again, staring at Osamu with a satisfied grin and warm eyes. He nods as he traces circles over his steaming cup, staring down at his drink with a frown in his face. Osamu feels his uneasiness travelling through their string, feels it as it climbs up his arm and wakes up his nerves, tingling and uncomfortable, and he can’t do anything other than stare.

“Do you think I should talk to him?” he asks in a barely-audible voice. “Or am I just going to walk in and have my heart broken again?”

“Ya won’t know if ya don’t try,” Osamu replies, stretching out his arm over the table until his fingers brush the skin on Keiji’s hand. “And if worst comes to shove, I’m always here for ya to cry on. I’ll make ya some food and we’ll binge-watch those crappy shows ya like.”

“You got that one wrong,” he whispers.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s ‘if _push_ comes to shove’.”

_Of course._

“That’s what I said.”

Keiji giggles, shaking his head. “No, you said ‘if worst comes to shove’.”

Osamu sighs. “Are ya sure yer ears are alright?”

What he gets in response is a light slap to his hand and the loss of his last cookie. Keiji giggles as Osamu pretends he’s upset, as he tells him he’ll have his revenge eventually. It’s fun being around him, it’s light-headedness and comfort, it’s being able to play around without fussing over your words, without needing to put up a façade that everything is fine. Keiji is vulnerable and so is Osamu. Keiji is in love with someone who isn’t him and Osamu can’t blame him when he’s also in love with someone else. Keiji mocks him as he starts talking about something else and all of a sudden the string around their pinkies doesn’t burn anymore, the phantom fingers wrapped around his skin aren’t there anymore and Osamu can finally breathe, even when the shackles are still being dragged along with every step he takes, even when their clanking is all he can hear. They’re no longer heavy as they wrap around his wrist, they no longer tug him down.

“I’m telling him,” he says.

“Okay.”

“I don’t know when,” he says. “But I’ll tell him.”

Osamu smiles at him, thinking about how his own heart clenches tightly inside his chest, thinking about how his thoughts are nothing more than a jumbled mess of syllables that don’t make sense, thinking about the piece of red fabric dangling from one’s finger, tied to nothing and no one, thinking that _maybe, just maybe_ , he would’ve liked to know what it was like to have it tied to him. Osamu smiles at him, his eyes never showing the same emotion. He gulps down the knot in his throat when Keiji tilts his head, his lips parted in a questioning smile.

“Okay,” is what he says, finally.

“You better be there for me if I get my heart broken, Myaa-sam.”

He chuckles before nodding. “Ya know I will be.”

The funny thing was that, according to the myth, the mere thought of your soulmate being with someone else was enough to make you sick to your stomach, to make you jump head-first in shallow waters, to make you lose all sense of self. According to the myth, you were supposed to desire the person on the other side of your string, you were supposed to yearn for them, to burn yourself down in raw, useless, desperate desire. You were supposed to live for them and they were supposed to live for you – that’s how the myth goes. That’s how everyone thinks it’s supposed to go, but Osamu knows better. His heart doesn’t burn in desire for Keiji no matter how pretty he thinks he is, no matter how many times they’ve shared secrets no one else but them knew about each other because _he’s not the one I want_ , he whispers to his string. That’s how everyone thinks it’s supposed to go but in the end Osamu knows that’s not the case for them.

That’s how everyone thinks it’s supposed to go, but the string wavering in front of him, reaching upwards with its invisible fingers, trying to touch something it’ll never reach. It glows a faint pink, fluttering along with the breeze as it wraps and unwraps its claws around people he doesn’t even know, as it plays with their hair, as it stands by their feet and makes them lose balance for a few seconds. He walks around without paying too much attention to the fluttering around his head, to the way it wraps around his neck and halts his movement as if it’s telling him that _no, he’s on the other side._

Osamu almost tugs on it, almost wraps his fingers around the silky thread to unwrap it from himself, but the last time he tried that Keiji showed up in front of him a few hours later with a few bruises on his face because _I keep tripping today, I think I didn’t get enough sleep_ , so tugging on their string had suddenly become something forbidden.

The wind whooshes past him and the string is carried along with it, flowing smoothly over his head and around people he never met before. It looks ethereal under the sun, waving its invisible hands at him as if it’s asking for a dance, as if it just wants to waltz around without a single care in the world. They’ve said their goodbyes with light touches and a pinch on the bridge of Keiji’s nose as soon as Osamu’s phone lit up with a text that said nothing but _coffee’s on me today_ next to a smiling face. They’ve said their goodbyes and sealed it with a promise that they’d take that one leap of faith, that they wouldn’t let Fate bind them to people they didn’t even know. Except that, in this case, they technically did.

“What are you thinking of?”

Osamu shivers as his eyes focus again, as his brain finally registers that, yes, he’s somewhere else now. Rintarou has an amused smile on his face as he licks off the cookie crumbs on his fingers, arched eyebrows and tilted head. He’s looking at him with eyes like the winter kiss that extinguishes the flames within his bloodstream, like the fresh air that suddenly envelops him after the years he’d spent buried in lava. His cut string twitches on its own when Osamu sighs, flowing along with the breeze that envelops them, tied to nothing and no one, dancing along with Osamu’s pink string, coiling whenever touching becomes a possibility, whenever they brush against each other.

It’s suddenly a little bit harder to breathe.

“It’s the first time you refuse coffee.”

“I had coffee with a friend earlier,” Osamu replies with a shrug. “Yer text arrived as we were saying our goodbyes.”

“Oh?”

Rintarou’s voice echoes with a questioning tone, head tilted to the side and squinted, darker eyes stare straight into his own. Cool fluid suddenly spreads across his stomach and Osamu shivers involuntarily when his whole body ignites in response, the shock being too much for his brain to handle. He blinks once and then twice as he tries to make his eyes focus again, as he tries to shatter the haziness Rintarou’s voice brought along, as he tries to gulp down the knot that settled inside his throat, scratching it raw whenever he tried to do something as simple as breathe. It hurts, it hurts too much, but right now Osamu is relishing in the thought that _maybe this is jealousy_ , that maybe he wasn’t running after someone he couldn’t have, that maybe Fate had fucked up this time and it was his victory. Maybe.

Or maybe he’s just surprised. Maybe he just thought Osamu didn’t have any other friends other than him because, well, they spent almost all of their free time together, anyway. Maybe he was surprised because they told each other lots of things, including when they were going out with other people to grab lunch or coffee and they’d complain all the time that _it would’ve been better if I was here with you_ , followed by sarcastic smiling faces and sometimes a heart or two.

“I didn’t know you had any other friends,” Rintarou says after a few minutes in silence. “You never told me. Were you trying to keep a secret or something?”

There’s playfulness in his voice, Osamu notes, but also something else.

“Not tryin’ to keep secrets,” he shrugs. “Just didn’t think ya’d be interested in what I do in my free time or who I go out with. Not that we’re goin’ out or anythin’. I’m just being a good friend and listening to him whining about his unrequited love, s’all. We help each other out.”

“Oh?”

He shouldn’t have said that last bit, Osamu finally realizes when Rintarou smiles mischievously at him, his eyes squinted in their best impersonation of a fox’s malicious expressions as it corners its prey, as it walks closer and closer with short, swift steps without making a single noise, as it prepares to lunge forward and sink its teeth into his flesh, to consume him whole without sparing him a single second to even try to think about running away. Not that he would have, not that he would ever want to – but Rintarou’s stare is relentless and Osamu thinks that if he dares to look away, he won’t even know what hit him before darkness envelops and the only think he’ll be able to see is the shape of the two cunning, fox-like eyes giving him one last choice before devouring him.

He shouldn’t have said that last bit because now he feels heat creeping up on his face, flushing his cheeks a nice shade of pink while he tries to think of something else to say, as he tries to avoid Rintarou’s merciless gaze, as he tries to blink away the sheer panic that’s bubbling inside his veins and gulp down the anxiety that crawls up his throat in an agonizingly slow pace, making him choke and gag only so many times before he feels like he’s about to burst up in flames again. It should’ve been the string’s doing, this tightening grip on his throat, this constant tugging on his ankles, pulling him up and dragging him down simultaneously, so hard he thinks he’ll break. It should’ve been the string’s doing, but it’s not. It should’ve been because of the gravitational pull of Fate’s mischievous, nasty little hands as it played around with him like an empty puppet that only lived to serve its master – but it’s not.

It’s because Rintarou has the most extraordinary eyes he’s ever seen, a mix of everything good and perhaps a little bit of bad, a color Osamu can’t wrap his head around, a shade he’ll gladly spend the rest of his life figuring out if he’s allowed to. It’s because his heart clenches painfully on his chest when he sees him walking away, because his heart swells up with euphoria when he finally walks up to him with a smile and teases him about whatever it is that he chose to make fun of today. It’s because he has the brightest, most annoyingly mocking smile he’s ever seen and he wants it to be directed at him every single day, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he closes his eyes at night.

Being with Suna Rintarou was nothing like being with Akaashi Keiji, is something Osamu has come to know in these last couple of months. Rintarou is relentless and mischievous and everything that can send him up in flames, leaving nothing but ash behind, but also the one thing that can build him up again in all of his glory. Keiji is comfortable warmth and solace, something he never knew he needed until his string twitched in a light pink, the one he can turn to when things suddenly stop making sense. One is a ferocious hurricane and the other is nothing but a light breeze and Osamu doesn’t think he’s ever craved danger this much before, doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to jump into shallow, boiling waters this much until he saw winter hazel staring at him from beneath the surface, bold and daring as if they were asking _won’t you risk it all for me?_ , and he would. He’d bleed himself dry, he’d jump into the pits of hell if it meant he could take that nasty, revolving hurricane and hold it against his chest.

“Are you perhaps fancying said friend?” Rintarou asks, his voice low and suggestive.

“No.”

“Really?” he chuckles. “Then why are your cheeks red?”

 _Because of you_ , he wants to say. _Because of every little thing that has come together to build you up from nothing, because of everything that’s so characteristically Suna Rintarou and everything that makes me lose my mind. Because I can’t wait to see you and I can’t wait to see the red string dangling from your pinkie, telling me you’re still someone I can allow myself to want, someone I can still hold close to me. Because I can’t think about anything else that isn’t you or the fact that I’ve wished, so many times, over and over again, that your string was connected to me, that you could only see me in your horizon, that your eyes would light up for me only, but that’s too much to ask for. Because simply being around you makes my heart hurt, because a single glance is all it takes to make all the blood in my body boil, to make my lungs unable to retain the oxygen they so desperately need because you are the one thing I can think of. Because I want you to look at me and feel the same, I want to see you blush and I want to make your knees weak to the point you can’t do anything but kneel down and gasp for air like I’ve done so many times. Because of you_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

“They’re not,” is what he replies.

Rintarou squints before laughing softly, nodding as if he never asked anything. “Sure.”

Osamu looks down at his hands, at the string wrapped around his finger and he can’t help but feel like his skin is mimicking the pink shade that glows beautifully under the afternoon sun, swaying softly with the breeze that tries to wipe the heat away from his face, to cool down the sizzling inside his veins, but failing oh-so-miserably because there’s no way he could feel anything other than sheer desperation as his whole body is swept off in flames, as they consume every bit of him in a mere seconds, the numbness spreading across his skin, plunging deep inside and making him completely unable to move, mercilessly thrown in a fiery tornado created by Rintarou’s eyes as he continues to stare at him with a squint, mouth shut tight in a straight line as he tries to break him down piece by piece, slowly uncovering everything Osamu has tried so, so hard to hide.

“They are, though,” he murmurs before taking another sip out of his coffee, shrugging softly as he closes his eyes. “Would you like me to act as a cupid? I can do that.”

Osamu suddenly forgets how to breathe. “I’m not interested in him,” is what he manages to choke out. “And he’s not interested in me either. We’re friends who happened to realize we’ve been loving people who don’t love us back. Theoretically.”

“So you’re in love with someone?” Rintarou asks, his voice deeper and eyes sparkling with something Osamu can’t quite recognize, something that makes his lungs crawl in desperation because he’s no longer breathing. “Hypothetically, of course.”

“What if I am?”

“Hypothetically?”

“For real.”

Rintarou lets go of his cup, elbows resting on the table, eyes staring at everything _but_ him as he smiles fondly, as he tilts his head to the side, his hair falling beautifully over his forehead, fingers twitching ever so slightly, ripped string flowing along with the breeze as it mocks him, as if it’s saying _you were never supposed to be connected, remember this_ while Osamu does nothing but stare and stare and stare, so hard he thinks he’ll burn holes on Rintarou’s face, so hard he thinks he’s seeing things when beautiful, greenish-hazel eyes flock back to him, staring straight at him as a smile makes them shrink bit by bit until Osamu can’t see anything other than long, thick lashes.

“That sounds nice,” he replies in a soft voice. “Who’s the lucky fella?”

Osamu takes a deep breath, rejoicing in the sparkling flame that wraps around his heart, filling it with euphoria and despair all at once, making him shiver in both terror and excitement as he forces his eyes to stay open even when Rintarou’s gaze makes him want to close them and never open them up ever again. Still, he stares. Still, he clenches his fists and licks his lips. Still, he takes a deep breath and thinks to himself that _this is what we promised, our leap of faith, the one time we have to be brave._

So he speaks, even if his string twitches, even if the ghost hands are back around his throat and around his ankles, playing a nasty game of tug-of-war while their putrid fingertips keep digging into his skin.

“I like ya.”

It’s funny how different Suna Rintarou looks when he’s surprised. It’s funny because Osamu has come to know every single face of his, every little mannerism and every little bad habit. It’s funny because he was usually teasing, a never-ending smirk on his face while his eyes squinted beautifully like a majestic predator who liked to toy with its prey before sinking its teeth down on soft fur. It’s funny because Osamu has never seen anyone teasing _him_ , for once. He’s seen him happy and he’s seen him sad. He’s seen him upset and he’s seen him tired. He thought he’d seen everything there was to know about Suna Rintarou, even the things he didn’t know about himself – like the way he had a string around his finger and that the string wasn’t tied to anything. Like the way his nose scrunched up a bit when he laughed, the way he liked his coffee ridiculously hot and with so much sugar Osamu couldn’t help but be concerned. Like the way he liked lazing around, never moving more than what was strictly necessary but still agreeing to go on walks with Osamu after class even if he ended up complaining the whole time. Those are the things he knew.

So it’s funny when Osamu finds out one of the few things he didn’t know, when he finds out just how absurdly adorable Suna Rintarou looks when he has his eyes widened in surprise, glowing brighter than he’d ever seen them glow before, even brighter than the tiny piece of fabric wrapped around his finger, brighter than the sun, even. He never knew he’d have his mouth hanging open like that, never knew his face could be frozen in shock like that, never knew he could fall in love with him all over again because of this new face of his he was just now discovering, but apparently he could.

There’s a sharp intake of breath when Rintarou speaks up again, voice choked and weird as he wets his lips once and then twice, looking straight through Osamu as if he was never there to begin with. “Like, _like me_ like me? _‘I tolerate you’_ like me or _‘I like your company even if you’re annoying’_ like me? The _‘I’m your friend’_ like me or _‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’_ like me?”

“Like ya as in _‘I’m in love with ya and I want to kiss ya and hold ya and do whatever else you’ll allow me to’_ like ya,” Osamu replies, looking straight into the desperately hot shades of Rintarou’s eyes as he pretends that his hands aren’t shaking, that his heart isn’t about to burst. “Is that clear enough?”

He gulps, eyes wide when he nods. “Very.”

And for a second or maybe two or maybe five everything comes to a halt. They say the world stops spinning when you fall in love, they say you start feeling dizzy when it dawns upon you, that realization that the world is suddenly being swept off from under your feet. They say being in love makes your stomach churn as butterflies fly freely around your body as cold, pleasant liquid floods your veins whenever you do as much as look at the one you’ve fallen for because _yes, there they are._ But they also say it burns, that there’s an electric current running through your body, climbing up your spine as it waits for the perfect moment to sting you because _there they are, they just touched you_. It burns and it hurts and Osamu isn’t even sure he’s alive anymore when Rintarou shoots him a soft smile, when he winks and picks up his cup as if Osamu hadn’t even said anything.

He’s still breathless, Osamu notices by the way his chest moves a little bit faster, by the way he has his mouth open instead of tightly shut in a straight line, by the way he hides his hands under the table and refuses to look at him. They say the world stops spinning when you fall in love and Osamu finds out that he doesn’t agree – being in love with Suna Rintarou has made Osamu think he’s been thrown out of a flying jet, as if he’s free-falling with nowhere to hold onto, with nothing to soften his landing and he finds out he doesn’t really mind. They say being in love makes people stupid, and that’s one of the few things Osamu agrees with.

“So,” Rintarou finally speaks up, looking at him with a newfound gleam in his eyes, his lips broken apart by a new soft, warm smile he’s never seen before. “When are you planning to take me out for our first date, Miya?”

He can’t help the chuckle that shakes him to his very core, he can’t help but close his eyes when Rintarou laughs along with him, both of their strings flowing in the same direction along with the breeze, their hands slowly sliding across the table to experimentally touch their fingertips, backing away when it suddenly becomes too much and persisting even when it burns, even when it feels like he’s about to pass out.

He doesn’t.

“Isn’t this a date already?” he asks with a sly smile and Rintarou mimics him, nodding softly.

“It might as well be.”

* * *

As it turns out, Miya Osamu still had lots to learn about the tamed hurricane that was Suna Rintarou. He’d never known about his sleeping habits or about how clingy he was when he was tired, wrapping his arms around Osamu’s neck and showering his neck with lazy pecks as he mumbled something about being too cold on his own. He’d never known just how soft his lips were or just how much he enjoyed when Osamu stroked his fingers through his hair, nuzzling his palm and letting out soft hums before he fell asleep after class. He’d never known he enjoyed staying in instead of going out, watching him with hungry, sparkling eyes whenever Osamu did as much as turn around. _I’m waiting_ , he’d say, and by then Osamu would be laughing as he walked slowly towards his bed, towards his open arms, towards a cascading waterfall of soft touches and warm kisses, of fingers slowly trailing through hair, of two heartbeats that seemed to have found their own rhythm.

As it turns out, he still doesn’t know how to describe his eyes or the way they make it hard for him to breathe when Rintarou first looks at him as he’s bathed in the morning light. He still doesn’t know how to calm down his heart when Rintarou giggles without hiding his face, still doesn’t know how to stop his hands from trembling when he leans down to kiss him after he had his first sip of coffee for the day.

They’ve been hiding inside their cocoon of soft whispers and slow kisses, surrounded by the smell of Rintarou’s famous freshly brewed coffee and Osamu’s homemade meals. They’ve been hiding under their blankets and sharing light touches, from the tip of their noses to the bottom of their feet, so close they sometimes forget where one ends and the other begins, so close they can almost hear each other’s thoughts and Osamu sometimes wonders how Rintarou would react if he knew the things he’d been thinking about.

He’d probably tease him to death.

It’s only when he wakes up one day, blankets wrapped around their bodies, morning breeze creeping inside, Rintarou resting his head softly on his chest that Osamu feels the familiar phantom touches all around his body, wrapping around his throat and ankles, once again starting a nasty game of tug-of-war with him, pulling his hair and digging around inside his chest, gripping his heart with their dirty fingernails, twisting just about every organ they can find as if the pain in his chest wasn’t enough. It’s only when he opens his eyes and registers that _yes, he’s not seeing things_ that panic flares up inside, raw adrenaline rushing through his veins, his blood being _this close_ to the boiling point.

It was once an innocent, tiny piece of cloth dangling from one’s finger. It was once something so poetic, something rebelling, reminding him that it never once mattered where the string around his pinkie wanted to lead him to, that it never once mattered that a matchmaking entity had planned out the course of his entire life if only he chose to ignore it. It was once something he thought of with longing, wondering _why couldn’t it have been me instead?_ , wondering if he even knew his thread was loosely wrapped around nothingness. It’s not that small anymore, tangling around their sheets as Rintarou softly snores against his chest. It’s stretching endlessly to a point Osamu can’t see and all of a sudden he feels like he’s being thrown around by the invisible hands he’s grown so used to, thrown around like a ball in a game of ball tag he wasn’t aware he was even playing.

He moves one of his hands away from the blankets, red tightly wrapping around his wrist like it was always supposed to be there, glowing impossibly bright as if it’s telling him that _yes, I’m here, rejoice!_ and he can’t do anything other than stare as he feels the knot climbing up his throat again – because of course Fate wouldn’t let him break free from the shackles, of course it wouldn’t let him go against the very thing he was built upon. Of course.

But when his own string twitches in response, when it burns around his pinkie, Osamu suddenly forgets how to breathe – for real. His chest feels uncomfortably tight as his lungs expand, as they try so desperately to find even a tiny portion of the oxygen they crave, squashing his heart around his ribcage in their way. Red climbs up his wrist, goes around his fingers and tangles itself with the soft, pink shade around his little finger, around the very string he once thought about cutting, the very string that haunted his thoughts, the very string that brought him a person he never knew he needed, the very string that now glows in two different colors as they diverge into two fluttering paths that wrap around each other tightly as if they’re old friends, as if they were always supposed to coexist.

Oh, he thinks.

_Oh._

“What are you staring at?”

Rintarou is staring at him with sleepy drowsiness splattered all across his face, his eyes puffy and his mouth breaking into a yawn every few seconds. His hair is standing everywhere, pointing at every direction as he tilts his head, resting his chin on Osamu’s chest. And then he smiles softly, whispering a sweet _good morning_ as he closes his eyes again and waits for the kiss he knows it’s coming. Osamu feels a tug in his string, something pulling deep inside, urging him to compel and he almost chuckles before thinking that _there’s no way I wouldn’t have_ as he leans down and softly pecks him on the lips.

“I think ya drooled on me a bit,” he says. “Morning, Rin.”

“I did _not_ drool on you,” is all he says before dramatically letting his back hit the mattress. “You’re just trying to make me embarrassed first thing in the morning. It’s not going to work, Samu. I know better than that.”

“Of course,” Osamu chuckles before opening his arms again. “Come on. Let’s get some more sleep and then I’ll cook us a nice breakfast and we’ll do whatever ya want for the rest of the day. Deal?”

Rintarou smiles.

“But only if ya promise not to drool on me anymore,” he adds, earning himself a slap to the chest.

“You’re an idiot.”

“’m yer idiot,” he hums as Rintarou shakes his head, smile still tugging at his lips.

He dares to take one last look at the beautiful blend of red and pink that wraps around him, around Rin as he lies down on top of his chest once again and he can only sigh in relief thinking that Fate finally cut him some slack for all the suffering he’s gone through all this time, feeling like the weight on his shoulders has finally been lifted, euphoria filling his every pore. Now, he thinks, he’s finally free to love Suna Rintarou the way he deserves to be loved, without feeling like there are phantom fingers dragging him down by his ankles and dipping him in molten lava every single night right before he closes his eyes. That and, well, he can also tease Atsumu about the way Fate thought he was awesome enough to have two soulmates whereas he only had one. And staring at it, feeling it as it wraps around his wrist, Osamu thinks that maybe red isn’t all that bad anymore.

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Miya Osamu who hated the color red – because red was for blood, for war. Red was for pain and the sudden realization that everything you believed in all throughout your life was a lie. Red wasn’t pretty, red was harsh and cruel and it would drown you in fiery flames if only you’d let it get closer. Red was for roses that feign innocence, pretending to be beautiful and harmless only to sting you and make you bleed out while they laugh silently because red isn’t good. Red meant misery, Osamu had once thought. Red was the worst of them all, red was what broke hearts all around the world, burning down empires leaving nothing but dust and piles and piles of blood in its trail. Red meant massacre and hurt and he decided he didn’t want anything to do with it.

But now it’s different.

Osamu has slowly come to learn how to love the red shade of the frail string that boldly wraps around the both of them as they walk out of their building, shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing about another one of Rin’s bad jokes. Osamu learns how to love the red on Rin’s cheeks when he blushes as soon as Osamu tells him how beautiful he is; the red on his swollen lips whenever they kiss in his dorm room late at night or by the dorm’s fire exit, right under the emergency lights that never seem to be working when none of them seem to be able to wait any longer; the red of his nose when the weather gets colder or the way his whole body flushes so, so nicely when Osamu kisses every little spot he can reach. He learns to love the red of the frail string that connects them even when Fate had deemed them both unworthy, even when _them_ didn’t sound like a possibility at all.

Red burns when they devour each other, desperately clinging to every bit of skin they can find. Red soothes when they curl up against each other under the sheets, whispering sweet words and giggling like kids whenever one of them gets their words wrong. Red is warm and comforting as they stroke each other’s hair, as they slowly caress each other’s faces, paying attention to every little detail they wouldn’t have noticed had they not been so close before. _You have a mole under your chin_ , he said once. _Has anyone ever kissed you here before?_ , he asked while his lips were already making their way down, softly brushing his skin. _No one aside from ya, love._

Red means the tamed fire and Rin. Red means home and everything he would’ve cast aside had it not been for him suddenly appearing in his life with his piece of string connected to nothing and no one, had it not been for him suddenly accepting the proposal for the worst date in the history of dates (even if Osamu ended up treating him to a good, fancy meal afterwards), had it not been for him allowing the fire to swallow him whole, had it not been for those cunning eyes consuming every inch of him, oh-so-slowly he felt like he was floating. Red means the devouring heat that thrashes all around them, that eats away their clothes and their skin, leaving nothing behind but the smell of raw desire and ashes in its trail. Red means the solace they’ve found, red means the mending of something deemed worthless, of something that was once a mere speck of dust under Fate’s ministrations, something that has become even greater than a mountain, than a volcano about to erupt.

If it’s with Suna Rintarou, Osamu thinks, he would gladly bathe in flames.

**Author's Note:**

> based on this prompt:
>
>> in a world where the red string exists, but the strings can break or reattach intentionally or on their own depending on the kind of relationship between the two connected people
> 
> you're free to come yell at/with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/aaIphard) (´꒳`)


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